


Slow Burn

by orphan_account



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Irony, M/M, Race, Racism, Skyrim Kink Meme, TV Tropes: Fantastic Racism, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-18
Updated: 2015-03-13
Packaged: 2017-12-20 15:40:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/888956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"And it would have to be that the most enticing being to step into Windhelm - into the Palace of Kings - in over a decade would be one of those scrawny, pointy eared freaks.  Ulfric does not appreciate the irony." [Kink Meme prompt] </p><p>The Dragonborn really just wants to fix things.  Ulfric is angry and attracted and not giving him much incentive to try.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Red

**Author's Note:**

> Edited a bit further from its original posting at the Skyrim Kink Meme.

Ulfric hadn’t quite been dozing. Exhausted as he was from Helgen and the week that had preceded it, he would never go so far as to nap at his throne—but he was nevertheless still somewhat unprepared when he lifted his head from a moment of weary reverie to spot an elf standing motionlessly a dozen paces away. It was a greyskin, at that. Another of the entitled rabble that lived in his city and had the gall to complain about it. The sounds of Galmar and Yrsarald heatedly arguing over red and blue flags drifted out from the strategy room, and so Ulfric swallowed a sigh, elected to take care of this nuisance himself. Where was Jorleif when he was needed? 

“I’ve told your people any number of times that there is a war going on that demands my attention, elf.” 

There was no discernible reaction from the elf at all. He was standing in an area of the hall too poorly lit for Ulfric to be able to see him well, but Ulfric felt the pressure of the silent stare. Unusual and somewhat insubordinate, and yet Ulfric sensed no real hostility in it. This was no aggrieved assassin, then, though it would not have been the first attempt.

When no response came, Ulfric didn’t bother to restrain his sigh a second time. “If you’re merely seeking someone to stare at, I’m sure my guards could provide you with a cellmate or two for company.” 

A small pause, and then the elf deigned to stray a little from the dark patch he’d been standing in, the light catching on the deep red hue of his hair. Ulfric had not known many greyskins, certainly none with hair that color, and he was momentarily startled by the effect of it. Striking, the contrast against ash skin.

Ulfric was overtired. He could not be held accountable for a few split seconds of…distraction.

Nor was anyone else there to see if he took a few more. It was in his best interest to know the details of this intruder. That is what he told himself, in any case, as he slowly, thoroughly catalogued them in his mind: the slight figure stretched tall by perfect, defiant posture; the delicate lines and unfamiliar shapes of foreign war paint at the corners of downturned eyes; the clever, still hands resting against the sides of his mages’ robes. 

When the elf spoke, Ulfric knew himself to be a fool.

“I was told a Dunmer should not expect a kind greeting in this city, but I suppose that could have been much worse.”

It was not the words that shook Ulfric, but the Voice that had spoken them – the subtle resonance that anyone else at all would have missed. But never Ulfric, who had spent a decade of his life learning to recognize and produce the kind of power that he heard now, effortlessly threaded into every quiet exhale of the elf’s breath. There was fire in this visitor: there was force and something pure and lethal. 

“Do I know you?” Ulfric managed to ask, and some sensible and seldom heard part of him knew to be relieved that a vessel of such capacity stood before him with nothing more sinister than mild appraisal in his eyes. 

“We met at Helgen,” said the elf. Nothing more. Ulfric was struck with a blurry memory of an injured prisoner in a dazed heap on the floor of the Imperials’ wagon, hair and face blackened by the grime of imprisonment. The same prisoner stumbling into the Keep after Ralof, never speaking a word, but lacking enough in fear to jump from the tower into the burning wreckage of an inn far below without more than a second’s worth of perfunctory hesitation. Ulfric looked hard, attempting to match the memory to the immaculate mage standing before him. Perhaps there had been a red sheen to the hair beneath the grime…war paint beneath the blood. Strange and somehow appealing, those, now that he could clearly see the intricate stories of color against grey skin. 

Ulfric came back to awareness and realized the gap where a response should have been. The elf at least did not seem to have minded Ulfric’s pause for rumination. He was staring squarely back at Ulfric as the latter finally found his words. “Destined for the chopping block, if I recall.” 

One shoulder lifted and fell in dismissal. “As were you, Jarl.”

That unconscious power needled at Ulfric, made him uneasy and volatile. “What is it that you _want_ , elf?” he demanded, and the red eyes widened a bit in surprise, shifted their gaze to a spot somewhere over Ulfric’s shoulder. 

It was not actually the question Ulfric had meant to ask. But the elf seemed to have heard what Ulfric had intended to say – in the vehemence of his tone, perhaps, or the threads of his own thu’um beginning to defensively emerge. “Meaning – _what are you_ , perhaps?” the elf said, mildly. He looked down at his feet, then up again at Ulfric through his lashes. “Not long ago I wouldn’t have been able to tell you. But in Whiterun this past week they told me of a story of one who…devours dragon souls, I believe.” 

The distance between them was suddenly too great and too small all at once. “ _Dovahkiin_ ,” Ulfric breathed, and the elf inclined his head briefly. “What, then, is the Dragonborn doing in my palace?” 

The elf’s answer came out haltingly, in careful, strategic pieces. “I am still…very new to this land. I don’t understand it well, its stories or its politics or its wars. I thought to wander a bit and observe to see if I could not form some better understanding of everything.” One corner of his mouth twitched but settled again before it could form a more revealing expression. “Of everyone.” 

Twelve paces between them. “And what assessment have you made?” Ulfric asked. Challenged.

They stared each other down until at last the elf smiled. It was a thin smile—not malicious, but skirting a knife’s edge between insolence and anger. And then the elf deliberately laid his parting words down like a trail of breadcrumbs at Ulfric’s feet. 

“Visit your Grey Quarter, kingslayer.”


	2. No Point

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for the Blood on the Ice quest.

Ulfric was not the sort to take orders from ill-mannered strangers, Dragonborn or otherwise. He had more pressing things to do than take a leisurely stroll through the city or _chat_ with the locals.

He did, however, ask his scouts to bring him back a name. There was no reason “elf” or “Dragonborn” would not do as a form of address, but Ulfric knew well the power of words and names, of the sound of them in the open air. He had to at least know what this wandering visitor called himself.

When the letter from the scout came, he laid it open across the desk in his quarters and stared at the name he found after skimming down the page. _Llaren_. He mulled over the shape of it for some time, attempted to weigh it in the scales against the strength of traditional Nord names. Gleaning nothing from the attempt, he buried the note in some distaste under a pile of other, more urgent messages. Ulfric did not have time to waste thinking of red hair or the curve of that neck or the soft weakness of Dunmer names, by Talos, he did _not_ —and so he hated himself when he did exactly that as the weeks passed. 

\--

Brunwulf Free-Winter came to see him not long afterward to discuss the greyskins’ treatment in the city. It was not the first such conversation they’d had, and Ulfric weathered the familiar arguments with bored civility. 

“Ulfric, _please_ , open your ears and _listen_ ,” Free-Winter said at one point. “The Dragonborn seemed to believe in your capacity for reason.”

That caught his attention. He did not lift his head from where it was resting against his palm, but he looked immediately to Free-Winter's face, scrutinizing the expression there. “The Dragonborn,” Ulfric said, words as level as he could make them. “He has been in Windhelm as of late, then.” 

“He passes through maybe once every other fortnight. Sometimes he stays on a bit, sometimes he doesn’t. Last he arrived, he took care of a bandit enclave that had been troubling the dark elf settlements nearby. I hear he is also looking into the matter of the Butcher and the recent murders. A Dunmer of benefit to Windhelm,” Free-Winter said pointedly, looking squarely at Ulfric, as if challenging him to deny it. 

The conversation ultimately went nowhere, but perhaps it was a point in Free-Winter's favor that Ulfric could think of nothing to say to that challenge that wasn’t _he’s an affront to all respectable Nords and I want him in my bed_. 

Which meant, of course, that he said nothing. Some thoughts he could barely tolerate within the confines of his own skull, let alone in conversation.

\--

Greyskin women were promiscuous. Ulfric knew this much, had heard it said before somewhere. He wondered if it were true for the men as well. If it were for the Dragonborn. How easy it would be for a living legend to find a different lover in every hold. 

The thought was shameful and not easily smothered. 　

\--

It could not escape his notice that before long the Dragonborn had completed a substantial number of deeds and favors for the people of Windhelm. Ulfric’s scouts brought him regular reports, which noted that though the dragonborn still consistently departed to wander the other holds, the time between visits to Windhelm was shrinking. When in the city, he rested at inns or the homes of those he had helped and then continued to work his way through the streets, methodically learning its ways. 

Ulfric slept less and paced the floors and felt him across the miles. How long, he wondered, could this silent game stall.

\--

The next time he and the Dragonborn met, they did so whilst Llaren was busily bleeding across the stones of Ulfric’s palace. 

Ulfric was walking the corridors somewhat aimlessly early one morning when a well known scent pricked at his senses. Sharp and clean, the taste of metal on his tongue—blood in the open air. 

He didn’t have time to become alarmed before he turned the corner and nearly collided with the Dragonborn, who, if the hand that immediately scrabbled for a stabilizing hold in the fabric of Ulfric’s coat were of any indication, was having trouble standing. 

The grip on his coat was surprisingly tenacious, and the weight of the Dragonborn as he made use of Ulfric as an anchor was more solid than Ulfric would have expected. Llaren’s other hand shot out to join its match, desperate, and Ulfric reached out—whether to take pity and steady the elf or to push him contemptuously away, even he could not be certain. He never found out what he would have done. Llaren finally looked up at his face, gave a high noise of surprise, and let go of his own accord, pitching backward in a tangle of robes to the floor. 

“By _Azura_ ,” the elf burst out as he pushed up onto his palms, breathing hard, and what he said next was in a language Ulfric did not understand but was nevertheless unmistakably vulgar.

Ulfric deliberated for a long moment on how to respond to that. He made his expression stone. Finally he flattened his palms and used them to briskly smooth down the front of his coat. “Your understanding of basic court etiquette remains rather...lacking,” he remarked. 

Llaren seemed almost to wilt after his outburst of unintelligible greyskin babble. Cold sweat had smeared his war paint. Disheveled strands of hair clung to his forehead. “Yes,” he said, swiping at his face, “pardon me for dirtying your floors with my blood”—which was precisely what he was doing, sleeve and skin gashed wide open below one shoulder. 

Ulfric channeled all the patience he could. It was admittedly not much. 

“Not much of an injury if you have yet the breath to be hostile,” he said, and turned back the way he had come. He was not cruel; he would fetch Jorleif or somebody to tend to the wound, but he told himself he did not have to put up with insolence in his own palace, Dragonborn or not. 

In any case, it would probably be best that he have as little contact with Llaren as possible. It seemed to be the way most likely to kill this distracting little infatuation. 

So he could stop imagining red hair spread out across the expanse of his bed. 

He was almost around the corner when Llaren’s hesitant voice gave him pause.

“No, I—” 

Ulfric looked back, and there was something irritated and uncertain about the elf’s expression. “I wasn’t being sarcastic,” said Llaren. “I – truly don’t like causing messes.” 

“A likely story,” Ulfric said. He was moving before he could think about it; a few strides took him back to the heap on the floor, and he closed one hand about Llaren’s uninjured arm and yanked him back to his feet. He did not allow himself to be gentle about it. His own men got no better. Llaren stumbled, injured arm instinctively flailing out for balance, and blood splattered anew across Ulfric’s floor. Ulfric did not stop at the noise of pain: he was already moving, tugging his charge down the corridor with a grip he knew was too desperate even as he refused to loosen it.

“Where—” began Llaren blurrily. 

“To my court wizard. He is a passable healer on the side of his other duties, whereas you, in spite of the mages’ robes you wear, cannot close a simple wound.” 

Llaren sounded vaguely affronted. “I haven’t studied in the School of Restoration and—”

“You may spare me the details, Dunmer. I harbor no interest in the matter.”

It was silent but for their footfalls for a moment. Llaren broke it with a thoughtful, almost dreamy tone of voice. “Your Butcher was fast with a knife. I did not expect it. He’s dead now, I – came to tell your steward.” 

“Windhelm thanks you for your service,” Ulfric said automatically. He glanced back and was nearly derailed. Llaren was smiling faintly at him, as if inviting him to join in on a jest. 

“Can I keep the house as my reward? I think one is overdue.” 

Ulfric was startled. “The house,” he said once he'd made the inference. Word had reached him of Tova Shatter-Shield handing over the key to her late daughter's residence. And the gruesome discoveries found within. “You want the manor where the Butcher took his victims?”

“Yes, Hjerim, I believe it was called. Of course it’ll require a clean up of any remaining…grisly bits, but it’s really a lovely piece of property, and with the amount of time I have spent here these past months, it seems absurd to have nowhere to stay.” 

It was said as lightly as a joke, but Ulfric could not let the question pass. It felt as if there were some clarification he had to make, some assumption to destroy. He had to struggle for the words before he could find them. “There would be no point in giving it to you.” 

“No?” Llaren’s tone was indulgent. Not understanding what Ulfric meant to say.

“You could not reside there. It is outside the walls of the Grey Quarter.” 

Blood loss or no, Llaren suddenly found the strength to dig in his heels. He was small but stubborn and their journey down the hall ground to a halt, Ulfric’s hand still wrapped about the robed arm.

“Truly?” said Llaren, all indulgence gone now from his voice.

They stood connected through Ulfric’s grasp, Llaren’s face turned up to Ulfric’s even as his thin frame tensed from the pain of his wound and the slow build of fury. And something else that Ulfric knew too well. 

“What do you expect of me, dovahkiin?” Ulfric said lowly. “Do you think you can buy your race my favor with a few good deeds? Or maybe just for yourself? You are no exception.”

Though he was. Oh, he was. 

Llaren laughed, a withering noise. “What do I expect of you? I told you, Jarl, I do not like causing messes. I fix them. I have tried to fix your city’s, but how can I when what ails it lives above its streets.” 

“You dare,” said Ulfric, just as lowly as before. He stared into the red eyes and felt his own anger stir and could not turn away. He hadn't been able to, that first meeting, and he could not now. 

There was that razor-edge smile again. “It is the greatest cruelty that I cannot just leave this hateful place behind," Llaren said, face still turned up to Ulfric's, "though you may rest assured that I have tried. I tire of you and your city and I know that I will return anyway. Intolerable." 

His arm suddenly burned like flame beneath Ulfric’s hand, some trick of godsforsaken destruction magic, and as Ulfric swore and clutched at his injured palm with his other hand, Llaren was stumbling back down the hall. 

“Know this,” he was saying, voice rising above Ulfric's. “Give that manor to anyone else and I will burn it down just to spite you.” 

And he was gone again, leaving nothing but blood behind.


	3. Wretched

When he staggered at last out of the heavy doors of the palace, Llaren did not know whether to blame the anger or the blood loss for the blur the world around him had become. 

He lurched and cursed his way to the market district, supporting himself against walls or fences when most in danger of falling. Every texture was stark and overwhelming against the skin of his fingertips, and when he finally lost all balance, the impact of stone against his knees was very nearly the death of his last ragged bit of composure. He could not see and _he needed to leave._

He found his feet again, somehow, and then, miraculously, the door to The White Phial. 

“By the Eight,” Quintus Navale was saying into his ear. “Llaren, sit here, I’ll just fetch--"

“No,” Llaren said at once. His voice felt very loud in his ears, but he could not seem to quiet it. “Just something to seal the wound. I must depart. Immediately.” 

“You are not thinking clearly. You need rest and--"

“Quintus, please,” Llaren said, babbling now as he scrambled for his coin purse, “If it’s a matter of gold, I—“

“Oh, put that away.” Quintus’ face cleared a little in his vision, his cross expression the first thing to emerge from the haze. “You’ve done enough for Nurelion and the shop. We’ll not repay you with your death on some lonely road. I’ll get you your potions and you can be gone from whatever it is you’re fleeing, but you must also have a calming draught before I’ll let you out the door.” 

Llaren drank the draught in gulps while Quintus, ignoring all protest, cleaned and treated the gash below his shoulder. The world was still blurry by the time the last bit of bandage had been secured, but it was so in a sleepy sort of way, lacking much of the fury and dismay that had sent him spilling out of the palace doors in a bloodied panic. 

Recalling his departure and the reason for it was enough to shake him from his slowly settling reverie. He put his hands to his knees and stood with effort and more than a little pain. Slipping back out into the cold, he made for the city walls with the potions Quintus had selected for him: some to bolster his flagging strength, others to combat any infections that might settle in the wound in spite of the careful treatment it had received. The wound had not, after all, been obtained in the cleanest of circumstances. Llaren thought of the Butcher’s knife and what might have dirtied it before it had split him open. 

He had to make himself stop after a moment. There was no good in that line of thought. No good anywhere at all.

“Need a ride?”

Yes, he did. He was so very tired. He handed over the gold and was asleep the moment he fell into the wagon. Some black gap of time later, the cart handler shook him awake and announced their arrival in whatever hold Llaren had chosen in his drifting delirium. He jumped down from the wagon and walked as long as he could, and when he had nothing more he lay down in a field where at least it was not snowing and slept on the bare earth. 

His shoulder ached every second of his fitful sleep. He woke long enough to choke down a draught against infection and fell back into dreams of standing before Hjerim as it burned, Ulfric at his side as they stared somberly together into the flames. 

When he at last woke without an overwhelming need to immediately resume unconsciousness, it was not long before dawn--of what day, he did not know. Dutifully he drained another of Quintus' bottles, picked a direction, and began to walk again. 

If he had wept at all, the earth had absorbed the moisture. It wasn’t worth thinking about.

\--

The Dragonborn vanished from Ulfric’s scouts’ sights. It seemed he did not always attract disasters and dragons and bandit attacks en masse. He was a lone Dunmer with thin bones and quiet steps and fire inside him that did not need to be visible to be lethal, and for a time no one could tell Ulfric where he had gone. 

When he appeared back on the map it was in Whiterun, running errands for the court of Balgruuf the Greater.

Ulfric did not have time to spare for bitterness.

\--

Llaren liked Whiterun well enough. Well, he liked _Dragonsreach_ well enough. Whiterun on the whole was too self-absorbed, riveted to every tiny development in the squabble between the so-called Battle-Borns and Grey-Manes. Llaren had left the Great Houses behind in Morrowind and lacked any interest whatsoever in these humans who thought that a disagreement between a couple score of people constituted veritable clan warfare. 

The Jarl seemed to make an effort to keep the noise that followed the two families out of Dragonsreach, and the regular occupants of the Keep were accustomed enough to Irileth that they did not frown overly much at Llaren; both of these things cut down significantly on the number of headaches he suffered when visiting the hold. 

Irileth herself had no particular fondness for him, but there had been one incident between them early on in their acquaintanceship that still made him laugh in the strange, silent moments when it always seemed to come to mind. His boots had left footprints of dirt and half-dried dragon blood as he crossed the floor to stand before Balgruuf’s throne one night, and Irileth had cursed at him at such furious length in Dunmeri that it was all he could do to suppress a smile at hearing their mother language spoken so... _sincerely_ aloud. She saw the smile in his eyes regardless and called him a homesick wretch in the same breath, the same tongue.

He had not argued, though he had regularly mulled over the idea in his thoughts from that moment onward. _Was_ it homesickness? Perhaps. More likely, he thought, just a desire to be less immediately, obviously disparate from what belonged in this broken land of foolish broken humans. 

Perhaps, he thought again to himself, but how much of what isolated him was _Dunmer_ , and how much was _Dovah_? 

He heard Ulfric’s Voice in his sleep, calling him back across the miles and miles of dead winter ground. He knew the answer.


	4. Mark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Literally none of this was in the original draft for this chapter. I should know better than to expect these two stubborn jerkfaces to stick to any sort of plan. There’s a good bit more written, but this is really the only place it makes sense to break while I polish up the rest—the wait has been long enough, I think.

The Windhelm Guard combed through Hjerim in case anything of further concern had gone undiscovered. When nothing was found, the manor was cleaned, blessed, and left to stand empty.

The Shatter-Shields did not want it. Other interested and wealthy parties made inquiries. 

“The Jarl is not accepting bids at this time,” Jorleif informed them.

\-- 

_Are the people of Windhelm devout?_ the Dragonborn had asked once of the Nord Priestess he encountered in the market. He had set foot into the city for the first time but a few days earlier and found himself still grasping at every bit of knowledge he could. 

What little he had been able to see of the Priestess’ face beneath the low hood of the robes she wore was red from the wind and nothing so remarkable that he thought he would be able to single it out in a later crowd. But when he asked of piety, she raised her head and looked directly into his eyes with the wide sleepless gaze of one who believed so fervently that it had become the air she breathed and she couldn’t understand why the skeptical around her didn’t suffocate for lack of it.

In spite of himself, the Dragonborn felt the pinpricks of reluctant envy.

 _I’ve been seeing a lot of the Shatter-Shields since they lost their daughter_ , she said. _Hillevi Cruel-Sea comes in to the Temple a lot, but I haven’t seen her husband there in years. Ulfric—_

Yes, Ulfric. Llaren had met him mere hours before—if such a standoff could, perhaps through some charitable definition of civility, indeed be considered a meeting. The Priestess’ gaze reminded him now of the one Ulfric had turned upon him. It had been a heavy stare, full of a deep and solemn devotion to something that Llaren could not quite identify. He knew only that the man’s eyes looked always as if they were judging their target’s import to that unknown devotion, in such a way that suggested being determined irrelevant or an obstacle to its actualization could prove quite dangerous to the one who had been found wanting. 

It had rankled. _Do not presume to intimidate me_ , he had wanted to hiss. He had not yet admitted to himself that there was little conscious intention behind the way Ulfric looked upon things. Ulfric gazed with intensity because it was who he was and he could do nothing else. He did not understand compromise. He did not understand forbearance. He understood loss and hate and bloodstains that never faded. He might, Llaren thought, shivering from the memory of those eyes, understand desire. 

— _Ulfric prays for strength_ , the Priestess was saying. 

Was it a Nordic custom to pray for what you already had? Llaren had wondered, and curled his fingers up into his sleeves so they would not shake. From cold, of course.

\--

Llaren was something of a deadbeat Thane. He assumed so, anyway, from the vaguely disappointed looks he earned from his Housecarl every time he visited Breezehome, which most days he forgot existed at all. Lydia must have been so very _bored_ , assigned to a Thane who was never around, didn’t invite her out adventuring, and offered no explanation for either. 

He couldn’t bring himself to admit to her that he’d known almost from the beginning that if he were ever inclined to set down roots somewhere, it would not have been in Whiterun, in Breezehome. Really, he could barely admit it to himself. Weeks had passed since the night he’d fled Windhelm, and Hjerim still occupied a red, angry space in his thoughts. His extended stay seemed to have given Lydia hope that he meant to at last commit to Whiterun for good, something for which he might have felt guilty if not for the predictable restlessness that grew with every day he remained. 

At last he gave in and set to packing, silently berating himself all the while. He could not have grown attached to a sensible city like Whiterun, could he? That would have made too much sense, and Azura had obviously never seen fit to bestow him with much of that. But Whiterun had so much in its favor—Balgruuf the Greater, for one, was a competent ruler, which made him indeed the greater of his fellow Jarls. Llaren had not yet traveled to all nine holds, but the sampling of Jarls he had thusfar encountered did not overly fill him with confidence. Balgruuf was as good as they got. If Llaren were reasonable, he would plant himself firmly in Whiterun and quit while he was ahead. But he wasn’t any of those things, sensible or reasonable or a worthy Thane. He needed dysfunction of more genuine consequence than the likes of the Battle-Borns and Grey-Manes could provide to hold his attention for long.

Resigned to perpetually disappointing Lydia, Llaren stopped by The Bannered Mare for one last meal and somehow ended up explaining this flaw of his to Hulda while he sat at the bar. She snorted as she wiped down the wood surface of it. “You want dysfunction? Try Markarth. Dysfunction up to your neck. Well, higher on you, you’re no Nord in height, that’s for sure.”

Markarth. That was an idea. He could not tolerate Whiterun any longer, and the thought of Windhelm ached even as it called to him. Try Markarth, she said. So Llaren did. 

He took the journey by foot. It was long and rugged and marked by more than one dragon attack. In short, it was _excellent_. There was dirt on his face and something almost like happiness in his bones by the time he reached the stone doors. Perhaps he could forget Windhelm here after all. Perhaps. 

“Safest city in the Reach,” the guard crooned to him as the doors closed, and Margret was bleeding out on the ground before he’d taken two steps inside. Llaren stared and swallowed down an insane urge to laugh. 

_You wanted dysfunction, you stupid s’wit. Best get to work._

\--

It was good for morale for Ulfric to be seen amongst his people, sharing in their reverence of Talos. He came to the Temple as regularly as he could and stayed long when he did. Until it could be conclusively determined that whatever security breach behind the Imperial ambush at Darkwater Crossing had been neutralized, the time Ulfric could risk spending in the field with his men was greatly restricted. At the Temple he could at least feel connected to them through their families and their faith.

He was mid-conversation with the cousin of one of his soldiers when the scout interrupted. “Apologies, my Jarl, there is a matter that requires your attention.” 

“What is it?” Ulfric asked with a frown. “You do know how I feel about bringing business matters into the Temple.” 

“Yes, my Jarl. It concerns the Dragonborn.” 

The name alone was enough to cause a renewed surge of pain through the fresh scarring on his palm, the legacy of the burns Llaren had left him with that night in the Palace corridors. Memory came to him effortlessly of the flame that had risen from Llaren’s arm where Ulfric gripped it, Llaren’s voice rising with it in wounded fury. His footsteps had been uneven as they took him away, away—and now it had been months, and _he still had not returned._

The burned skin had not healed well on its own, for Wuunferth had not been told of it. It had been foolish of Ulfric to conceal the wound as he did. But it had left a mark, some physical proof that the elf had ever existed, had ever borne Ulfric’s touch.

The scarring was not excessive, but even now there was a tender weakness to it that made penning missives a misery. He used his other, uninjured hand to clasp the shoulder of his soldier’s kin in apology and excused himself and the scout to a quiet corner. 

“Speak,” he said shortly. There was a tension in his shoulder blades that he could not relax. The Dragonborn was rarely seen when he wished not to be: the last place Ulfric’s scouts had been able to decisively pinpoint him was Balgruuf’s court, and there only for a time. 

It had been months. 

There was sweat on the scout's brow. “News of the Dragonborn comes from Markarth. It seems, my Jarl, that the Dragonborn has—has been sentenced to life’s imprisonment in Cidhna Mine.” 

 

When Ulfric returned to prayer, it was not strength he sought.


	5. One or the Other

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are a few important scenes ahead that are giving me some trouble in editing, so please accept this little bit of plot while I struggle with what follows. **Warning** for violence, murder, and blood of a more explicit nature than what we’ve encountered before. Markarth is not a pleasant place, Cidhna Mine even less so. If you want to keep up with the story but are triggered by any or all of these, shoot me a message and I’ll be glad to give to give you a bare bones summary of those passages. Otherwise skip to the section immediately following the **–x–** break instead of the usual -- marker. **Spoilers** for _No One Escapes Cidhna Mine_.

Ulfric wrote the letter to Thonar Silver-Blood as quickly as his scarred palm would allow. He didn’t know the man as well as he did his brother Thongvor, who had proven to be a staunch son of Skyrim and a great political ally to Ulfric over the decades. Ulfric would make use of that tie and appeal to Thongvor to intercede with Thonar if it came to it, but he knew—as did all who had any cursory familiarity with the Silver-Bloods—that it was Thonar who saw to the actual physical reality of maintaining the family’s status and overseeing Cidhna Mine. 

The Silver-Bloods supported Ulfric and his Stormcloaks. If Ulfric asked it, Thonar would release the Dragonborn. He silently repeated this to himself as he folded and sealed the letter. 

Ulfric would fix this. And, the shameful corner of his mind whispered, Llaren would be indebted to him for it. It was a heady thought. He found himself unable to let it go as he wished the messenger a swift journey. 

\--

“So, my fellow beast,” said the King in Rags, “what do you want?” 

When Llaren answered, Madanach laughed and laughed, the sound as amused as it was bitter. 

“This is not your struggle to _fix_ , dark elf. If there is such a thing for the Reach, it begins and ends with the Nord dead and gone from our land, by our hands. Talk to Braig. See what a man who has lost all thinks of an outsider’s _fixes_.” 

Speaking with Braig was…difficult. His grief was obvious and painful, seeming almost to press and beat against the walls. Llaren’s stomach cramped with hunger as he listened. There was little enough air this deep underground, and his lightheadedness only worsened with the pain that seized his lungs. Too much emotion had been buried here, left to rot with the men who carried it as surely as they did their pickaxes. Everything here was wrong. The walls were so close around him that the words of the Shouts died in his throat, quashed by his preemptive, irrational fear that the sound would be somehow swallowed up by the earth and leave him bereft of any pretense of security. His magic was of little use against his naturally resistant Breton prison mates, who wielded shivs and pickaxes with the ease of long practice. Without the _Thu’um_ , he was but a lone Dunmer, and easy enough prey. 

Braig at last wrung himself dry of words. Drained by the experience, Llaren stalled in returning to Madanach and instead found a dark nook away from his fellow beasts where he could close his eyes and turn over Braig’s words in his mind. _There are no innocent onlookers in this struggle. Just the guilty, and the dead._ It made a miserable sort of sense, far more than anything else he had encountered in this mad city. He began to sort through his memory, assigning everyone of consequence to one category or the other. Guilty or dead. Guilty or dead.

The dead came quickly to mind. Braig’s daughter Aethra. Margret. Her killer, Weylin, struck down himself immediately afterward. Eltrys, who would never meet the child for whom he’d nearly given up his investigations. Betrid Silver-Blood. Nepos and his entire household. 

He went through the guilty slowly, deliberately, blood hot in his veins. Thonar. Madanach. Ulfric above them both: the Bear of Markarth, indeed. Faceless Nord oppressors and Thalmor Judiciars. 

Llaren himself. 

He had shouldered his way into a conflict that he had known was not his, and still he lived. He had pushed for information and cooperated with Eltrys when he should have seen the man’s haunted eyes and sent him home to his pregnant wife. He had bribed and threatened his way through the Warrens, killed the old Forsworn servants in the Treasury House, and massacred Nepos and half a dozen others in the man’s own home. They were the dead, and he the living. It was enough. 

Accepting this made Madanach’s next task for him…more tolerable. Grisvar the Unlucky was unwisely trusting for a snitch, and Llaren was quiet enough on his feet to compensate for his lack of skill with a shiv. When he forced the improvised blade up underneath Grisvar’s ribs, the man’s screams were not loud enough to drown out the sound of ripping flesh and muscle. 

Afterwards Llaren could not remember if he had apologized or not. He knew only that he had not moved when Grisvar collapsed, blood pooling slowly around the soles of Llaren’s bare feet. The others were silent as he crossed back through the main room to Madanach’s cell. 

Madanach looked at the red footprints trailing behind him and smiled. “Look at you. Welcome, brother. Don’t you think it’s time we left?” 

And so they all ran, killing frostbite spiders and destroying Dwemer mechanisms along the way, until at last they reached the mouth of the tunnel, where a waiting woman Madanach called Kaie came forward with everything the guards had taken from Llaren. There was not much. Llaren pulled his robes and boots on, feeling the familiar enchantments settle over his skin. The fabric hung looser on his frame than he remembered. When had he last eaten? Azura, when had he last slept? 

The woman had found his coin purse and potion satchel as well. The purse was as he had left it, filled with more empty soul gems than actual gold. He tucked it away and mechanically adjusted the straps of the satchel over his shoulder. 

“There is one more thing,” Madanach said. In his arms rested a folded set of what looked to be the armor the Forsworn bands scattered around the Reach’s various Redoubts were wont to wear. “Blessed by the old magics.” Madanach smiled, and there was approval in the look, one guilty beast to another. “Something to remember me by.” 

Llaren did not want to remember. He wanted—he wanted it all to stop. To vanish like ash in the wind. He looked blearily at Madanach and did not reach for the armor.

“Oh, come now, brother, this is hardly the time for modesty. You had as much a part in our success as I did. It was your meddling that reminded me how much there is still to be done aboveground, after all! Don’t shy away now from your reward.” 

Llaren struggled to clear his throat. He had bent so far already. He would break if he let Madanach speak again. 

The words were there, and he could have sobbed from relief. 

 

_YOL TOOR SHUL._

 

**-x-**

 

He came back to himself slowly. 

Reluctantly.

Grimy and ashen, he stepped over the charred bodies and out into the open air, where Thonar Silver-Blood was waiting for him. 

“There is only one reason you would be here without Madanach beside you,” he said, looking every bit as pleased as the King in Rags had. And why not? Llaren thought, swallowing his rage. He had danced so perfectly for them both. 

“My eyes inside the mine suspected you were merely biding your time before you turned,” Thonar said. “I am glad to see now that they were not mistaken. I’ve had the Jarl officially pardon you—and it seems your belongings have already been returned to you. That would be potentially concerning if I weren’t so sure that you’ve already disposed of the one responsible.”

There was no hesitation in his voice when he said it: _disposed of_. It was not euphemism to Thonar. It was merely what one did to those who stood in the way. It was what _Llaren_ did to those who stood in the way.

Guilty, or dead. 

“You put me in there with them in the first place,” Llaren managed raggedly. Even his throat felt as though it had been coated in ash. “And now you expect me to, what, exactly? Shake hands and part ways? Sing praises of your mercy throughout the holds?”

“You needn’t take offense.” Thonar smiled with good humor, as if they were friends reconciling after a prank taken too far. A victor could afford to be magnanimous. “Clearly it was the best move I could have made. Madanach is dead, and you are free to return to your life. A good number of steps closer to being named Thane too, I would wager. Quelling the next Forsworn uprising before it could even begin is no small feat to Igmund, after all.” He stepped closer and took Llaren’s hand, and it was only paralyzing shock at the sheer audacity of the act that kept Llaren from striking the man down where he stood. Thonar placed a ring into Llaren’s blackened palm and folded it closed, stepping away with one last lordly pat against his knuckles. “It bears my family’s mark. A token for your efforts.” 

With that, he inclined his head in calm farewell and turned for the stone steps. Llaren stood in a daze until Thonar’s voice startled him from it. “Lest I forget, elf!” Thonar Silver-Blood called loudly over his shoulder. “You have the most uncanny timing of anyone I’ve ever met—not to mention friends in high places. A letter arrived shortly after you set off with Madanach and his men for the surface. Jarl Ulfric of Windhelm was seeking to negotiate your pardon. Ulfric himself! What strange days these have been!”

Llaren gaped after him, mute with astonishment.


	6. Shut

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh. Hello. It’s been a year?
> 
> Lots of Llaren this chapter. More Ulfric next time. Or more Ulfric and Llaren. Yeah, we look to be approaching a reunion here, friends.

_My Jarl Ulfric,_

_We of the Silver-Blood family were honored to have received your letter. While it should go without saying that we will always endeavor to grant any request of yours that is within our power, intervention in the case of the Dragonborn ended up being unnecessary. The Dragonborn not only found his own way out of Cidhna Mine, he also tidily disposed of the remnants of the Reachmen’s sputtering attempts at a second insurrection (and how Thongvor and I would love to hear your thoughts on that!).  A useful elf to be sure, and very gracious in pardoning the misunderstanding that led to his incarceration.  I am confident we may all put this incident behind us._

_Thongvor sends his warmest regards._

_Talos keep you,_

_Thonar Silver-Blood_

 

* * *

 

There had been a number of loose ends requiring Thonar’s attention before he had been able to sit down and compose the letter.  By the time he sent a courier away with it, several nights had passed, and the Dragonborn was long gone.  The carriage handler on the outskirts of the city recalled an elven traveler declining the offer of a ride some time prior. _He was headed northeast, though.  To Morthal, maybe?_ the handler speculated with a shrug.

 He underestimated Llaren’s sheer, horrified determination to be as far from Markarth and its recent body count as possible.  Llaren had rushed from the stone walls more fiercely than any whirlwind, the words of the sprint constantly on his lips: _Wuld nah kest,_ he’d Shouted, again, again, again, stopping periodically to boil river water and wash out the blood that filled his mouth. The Thu’um was meant to be as painless for its user as normal speech, and it usually _was_ —when not exercised to flagrant excess. It was far less forgiving, it seemed, on those who eschewed the necessary periods of rest between bouts of it and instead tried to Shout their way across a province in a quarter of the time. Even to one such as Llaren. _Hail the mighty Dragonborn_ , he thought with a wild hysteria as he coughed up crimson on the riverbank at the end of another night of travel. 

He knelt there at the waterline for a while simply struggling to breathe, wondering how long it would take for the raw scrape of his throat to heal if he gave it a complete rest from Shouting.  Not that he meant to do such a thing; there was still a long way to go between here and—well, no, there was no destination in mind, certainly nothing so grand as a _plan_. Nothing but the feel of ash under his fingernails and the memory of Madanach and the others screaming as they burned down to nothing.  Face frozen in a grimace, he stared down at his hands.  What a mess he had made.    

He’d thought he was fixing things.   

 _You cannot even close a simple wound_ , whispered a voice in the back of his mind. The words had the vague familiarity of a memory.  Blinking slowly down at his hands, Llaren thought backward in time and tried to put the errant thought into context.  He swallowed down the iron taste at the back of his mouth and suddenly knew, the blood the connection he’d needed.  

He’d been bleeding then too, a souvenir of that last desperate battle with the Butcher of Windhelm.  His capacity for rational decision making compromised by the shock of the wound, Llaren had stumbled not to a healer but instead to the Palace of the Kings, where, his muddled mind informed him, he could tell Jorleif it was over. Ulfric, naturally, had found him first.  He had good hands, Ulfric did, strong and competent and resolute in their grip.  They had pulled Llaren up easily from the floor, steered him down the hallway toward the Court Wizard, who was—

_…a passable healer on the side of his other duties, whereas you, in spite of the mages’ robes you wear, cannot close a simple wound._

_I haven’t studied in the School of Restoration and—_

Yes, that must be it, Llaren thought, with the sudden fervent belief of one who so desperately needs some manner of explanation for his despair that he jumps at the first possibility, no matter how impossible. It was so simple! He had been too eager, that was all, getting ahead of himself.  How could he have been so foolish as to believe he could fix entire cities when he couldn’t even fix his own broken skin?

 He had been fleeing from Markarth with nowhere in mind but _away_ , and at last he had a proper goal.  Winterhold had a college, he had been told, a college for the arcane arts.  Restoration, restitution.  Perhaps they were one and the same. 

Madanach and the others were still screaming in his waking memory, but he left their voices behind for a moment when he made camp and fell into sleep, where Ulfric whispered to him instead: _Winterhold_. _Winterhold_.

 

* * *

 

Llaren’s elation at having renewed purpose had soured somewhat by the time he at last arrived at the foot of the massive bridge. He had given in and paid a carriage to carry him across that last frozen bit of desolate distance to Winterhold, but the reprieve from Shouting, which his damaged throat could no longer bear, made him uncomfortably aware of a different pain—the kind that came part and parcel of the preliminary stages of the healing process.  A strange sensation of scabbing itched in his throat as a female Altmer stepped forward to intercept his path up the sloping bridge. Llaren wondered if admittance were contingent on speech, if he could pantomime his way inside.   

A college of arcane knowledge situated in a land as averse to magic as Skyrim had good reason to be wary of outsiders, but the crackle of enchantments on Llaren’s robes and the sharp points of his ears seemed to count for much in appeasing the gatekeeper’s concerns.  A nod here or there from Llaren helped the one-sided conversation along to what he thought might be its conclusion, until suddenly the Altmer sighed and said: 

“Indulge me, if you will, in a small, mandatory test before we head inside.  Let me see…those invested in Restoration Magic find the Healing Hands spell to be essential. Can you cast it on me?” 

Llaren stared at her for a long moment and then barked a laugh, the first sound he had made the entire interaction.  It hurt worse than even the irony.

 

* * *

 

Llaren’s classmates made him feel old.  He wasn’t, not truly, not by his people’s standards—though he admittedly had a couple decades on his fellow Dunmer, the girl Brelyna, who had flushed and blurted out something about her magic-steeped ancestry the moment they met.  Typical Telvanni, he’d thought, with a sigh more air than sound.  _Don’t bother trying to prove yourself to me_ , he’d wanted to say, _this land will demand that of you soon enough, over and over again, until it no longer flusters you but enrages you.  And then you will have to do it again._   

He could have warned her what it meant to live amongst Nords. He could have told her many things.  But he didn’t say a single one of them, memory and the pain in his throat sealing his mouth shut. 

J’zargo could have made him laugh, if Llaren had the volume for it.  _Your confidence outstrips your skill_ , he could have told the Khajiit, _though I can see in you that it won’t always be so.  You have a talent for Destruction._ He might have even admitted to knowing what that was like, how it felt to _excel_ at turning the world to cinder. But he didn’t, the blood at the back of his mouth staining his words before they could be said.    

At least in his silence he could still roll his eyes at Onmund, which he did often, to Onmund’s general befuddlement.  _Oh you poor Nord boy,_ Llaren might have sneered, more meanly than he meant or was merited, _you cast a few spells and think you know what it is to be shunned._ But then, hearing his own callousness, Llaren might have reined himself in and given Onmund a secret he had confided in no one else in apology: _There is a man who wants me but not to see me his equal.  There is a house that is mine that I cannot have.  I will burn it down before another can claim it.  That man who wants me will look at its ash and see the color of my skin.  He will see me and regret._

But Onmund would not understand, and Llaren was too weary to try.

 

 

In the end, he spoke fewer than twenty words in his first few weeks at the College.  The vast majority of them were directed to Tolfdir and rose so barely above a whisper that the old wizard had to crane his head downward to hear the croaking request: 

“The Restoration instructor.  Breton.”  

 _Colette_ , Tolfdir supplied patiently, masking any surprise he might have felt at the ragged condition of his student’s voice, which had previously been thought by most at the College not to exist at all.  

“Yes, Colette.  She’s unhinged.  Would you teach me to heal instead?”  

 

 

And so Tolfdir trained him.  In coming to Winterhold, Llaren had meant only to acquire the most basic theory behind healing and then slip from the city to work out the rest on his own, somewhere safe and secluded.  He might have carried out this plan had Tolfdir not proven to be so utterly benign in all his doings, so genuinely invested in Llaren’s academic progress. Above all he was patient, waiting with unruffled composure for Llaren’s moods to stabilize when they ran foul and wild and never once asking what it was that Llaren had done that made his hands tremble sometimes as he traced the shape of magic into the air.  

 They studied wards first and longest.  Wards embodied safety, after all, and they were _interesting_ , which Llaren had not expected.  When in the past he had been unable to skirt around a confrontation altogether, Llaren had simply drawn the elements down upon the heads of his opponents before they could do the same to him.  It was the only strategy he had ever needed.  Learning instead to intercept elemental energy, to neutralize what he could and divert what he couldn’t—it was the magical equivalent of training overlooked muscles only to realize they’d been the ones holding him up all along. He had questions about it all.  He had questions, and then he had a _voice_ again.  It came in fits and false starts but it was there, and Tolfdir pretended not to notice when Llaren realized it midway through a question about ward duration and had to blink back sudden shocked tears.    

 Spells designed to repel the undead were next, offense to the wards’ defense.  These came far more instinctively to Llaren.  He understood reaching out a hand to restore what had been corrupted and seeing it fall to pieces instead.  He understood and his hands trembled, but he was not rendered voiceless a second time, and Tolfdir nodded with his usual beneficent smile and suggested that Llaren tackle the next spell on his own.  

A spell of healing at last, more than two months after he’d come for the sole purpose of learning one, and he was to do it alone after all. It was so depressingly typical of his life that he sighed, took the tome back to his quarters without argument, and read it in small bites over the course of several days. 

As he read, he remembered.  With the return of his voice had also come Markarth. He paused between paragraphs and thought of things he had pushed from his head.  When it became too much, he would look back to where his finger rested at the start of a new sentence and continue, the detached scholarly language muffling the edge of memory. 

A bit.  At first. There was something that jarred in his mind, refusing to settle.  He read faster and angrier, trying to outpace it, but, having become resistant to the soothing effect of the words, the tiny shard of memory pursued Llaren through the pages, until at last his finger rested before the first sentence of the last paragraph and he could not concentrate on the words through the blaring of the voice echoing in his ears:

 

 _Lest I forget, elf!_ Thonar Silver-Blood laughed in his head.

  _Jarl Ulfric of Windhelm was seeking to negotiate your pardon.  Ulfric himself!  What strange days these have been!_

  

It was very late in the evening of Llaren’s fourth day of solitary study, and he was awake and angry.

  

“By Azura,” he shouted suddenly at the ceiling, at _himself_.  There was a crash next door as a baffled Onmund jolted awake—and, by the sound of it, out of his bed entirely. “This stalling is pointless,” Llaren continued aloud, gaining volume as he went, “witless.  This is utterly undeserving of what I am. What Ulfric has forgotten me to be. Asking for help, from the likes of the Silver-Bloods?  Am I to fall weeping into his arms and his bed from gratitude?” 

He had switched into Dunmeri at some point.  Past any semblance of reason, he surged up out of the corner chair where he’d been studying and onto the cold floor. He stooped, snarling, to scoop up his traveling boots, then sat back on the bed to yank them up to his knees, cursing all the while at the knotted laces.  Next he made for the wardrobe that held his robes and flung the door open, the wood ricocheting loudly off the stone behind it. 

“For Talos’ _sake_ , man,” came Onmund’s muffled complaint through the wall.  

“Talos!  Do not speak to me of Talos!” Llaren shrieked back, _completely rationally_ , his fury at Ulfric expanding in that moment to all Nords, up to and including the disgruntled classmate one room over. Properly dressed at last, Llaren grabbed his satchel from where it hung over the back of the corner chair and crammed the healing tome inside without marking his place (one last paragraph to read, surely he could remember that much).  He stepped through the doorway into the atrium and took one last breath to steady himself.  Then he crossed with long, purposeful strides to the front door, barreling through it and out into the cold Skyrim night before another word of protest could be spoken.  

 There was a long moment of silence in his wake.  “They usually don’t crack until exam week,” Enthir muttered at last from the shadows of the stairwell, and stood from the bench where he’d been lurking to come sift through all the goods Llaren had left behind.  


End file.
